Coup d’etat in Michigan… following the money, connecting the dots, and assessing Snyder’s role

This afternoon, as over 10,000 protesters surrounded the Capitol building in Lansing, Governor Snyder singed into law legislation that would make Michigan the 24th right-to-work state. When asked why it was so urgent that this be done now, during the lame duck session, outside of the accepted procedural process, Snyder essentially blamed the unions, who, according to him, had gone too far when the’y attempted to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the State’s constitution during the last election. “I asked them not to go forward (with Proposition 2),” Snyder said to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell this afternoon. “And the reason I said is, ‘You’re going to start a very divisive discussion. It’ll be about collective bargaining first, but it’ll create a big stir about right-to-work in addition to collective bargaining’.”

So,the unions brought this on themselves by “overreaching,” and initiating a dialogue on collective bargaining that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Sounds plausible, right?

Only, that’s not quite the truth, as I learned just now from Snyder friend, and former Michigan GOP chair Ron Weiser, who was caught on tape at an August 9, 2012 Tea Party event, explaining how he, Dick DeVos, John Engler and others, had been planning this since 2007, just waiting for the right opportunity. Here’s the video, followed by a clip from Salon.com.

…In the video, Weiser describes hiring a political consultant and “working on that full-time” from October 2007 through the following March. Weiser, a former real-estate developer and U.S. ambassador who’s now the national RNC finance chair, describes a plan to gather signatures to put right to work on the ballot in 2008.

But Weiser tells the crowd that the strategy changed after a meeting in Washington with former Michigan Governor John Engler (now the president of the Business Roundtable), former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, billionaire donor Dick DeVos, and “some people from AFP (Americans for Prosperity),” the Koch-backed Tea Party group. At that meeting, Weiser says in the video, “what we determined was that to win that election, and to be sure we were gonna win it, we couldn’t have a governor that was against it. So we decided to wait. Wait until we had a governor. Now we have a legislature and we have a governor.” That governor is Rick Snyder.

Nowhere in the video clip does Weiser express concern about Snyder’s expressed antipathy towards right to work. But clearly, right to work supporters had no reason to worry.

Snyder’s previously avowed lack of interest in right to work was one of the building blocks in a media narrative casting the governor (slogan: “One Tough Nerd”) as a moderate problem-solver. The Detroit Free Press, which endorsed Snyder in 2010, noted in a Sunday editorial that it had frequently “trusted Snyder’s judgment” on economic policy, in part because “we believed him” when he promised to be “a pragmatist focused like a laser on initiatives that promised to raise standards of living for all Michiganders.” With a rushed-through right to work bill poised for Snyder’s signature, the editors wrote, “That trust has now been betrayed…”

It wasn’t just the Free Press. An August New York Times article offered a sympathetic portrait of the governor as a man trying to steer a middle course in a partisan era. But as some Democrats argued, that was an unjustifiably generous view of Snyder’s record, including on labor: While disclaiming interest in “Right to Work,” he signed a series of lower-profile anti-union bills into law. Those included denying collective bargaining rights to graduate student research assistants and domestic care-givers, and dramatically expanding the power of appointed emergency managers to shred the provisions of public workers’ union contracts…

So, it would seem that Snyder was on-board from the outset. Or at least Weiser didn’t have reason to believe that Snyder’s often-repeated campaign promise, that right-to-work wasn’t “on (his) agenda,” would be an obstacle. Either way, we’re now living in the Michigan envisioned by John Engler 25 years ago, a Michigan no longer tethered to the legacy of the 1936 Flint Sit-Down Strike, the subsequent Battle of the Overpass, and everything that came afterward. What happened today is a historic break with history. It’s one think to pass right-to-work legislation in Alabama. It’s quite another to do it here, where the American labor movement became a force to be reckoned with, and where the middle class was born.

But Snyder continues to call himself a friend of labor. Earlier today, on Mike Huckabee’s radio program, he explaining how this legislation would ultimately be a good thing for unions, as it would force them to better articulate their “value proposition” to workers. “I actually don’t view this as anti-union,” said Snyder. And, apparently, his team was even able to round up a small handful of union members to back him up him up in this ridiculous assertion. Here’s a video that his office released today, of libertarian auto workers speculating as to how much better things will be in a right-to-work Michigan.

I know you all know this, but I think it’s worth repeating at this point that, despite what Snyder and others may say, no one was forced to join a union under the system which we had, until this afternoon, been living under. Conservative workers, like the clearly-friendless men featured in the above video, who didn’t like union politics didn’t have to join. They could just pay an agency fee for those non-political services which the union provided, and, in that way, they could enjoy union representation without funding Democratic candidates, and other activities with which they might not agree. So, for Snyder to suggest, as he has on several occasions, that people were losing their jobs because they didn’t want to join a union, is complete bullshit. And, despite what Snyder says, this has nothing to do with his being “pro-worker.” I know it’s easy to lose sight of the truth in blinding shit-storms, like the one we’re fighting our way through now, but here’s one thing I know to be true, like I know that my trusty compass always points north. The Koch brothers don’t cut blank checks and send representatives across the country to work on initiatives like this one because they care about the plight of workers. If that were the case, we would have seen them assisting workers in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. No, this is about breaking unions in order to clear the way for significantly reduced employee pay, and the rollback of costly worker safety programs. This is about increasing corporate profits, and shifting the balance of power away from workers and back to those in possession of capital, and, if you think differently, you’re just not paying attention.

[The right-to-work strategy, for those of you who haven’t been following this in the news, is simple and brilliant. It allows people working in union shops to opt out of paying union dues and agency fees, while still being able to benefit from union-negotiated contracts. The incentive for workers is clear. They can stop contributing toward their respective union, and immediately see an increase in their take-home pay of approximately 2%. In the short term, the repercussions will be minimal, but, as time goes on, the union, starved of operating capital, will become less effective… less a threat to those in power, and less able to negotiate on behalf of workers. And, perhaps most importantly, at least from the Republican perspective, they’ll be less able to engage politically. Their “get out the vote” initiatives will wane, as will their contributions to Democratic political candidates. This, in other words, is a “win-win” for conservatives. It increases corporate power/profits, which strengthens their base, and, at the same time, it seriously cripples the Democratic party in perpetuity.]

And, speaking of the wealthy industrialists who invested in making this happen, here’s a bit more from that Salon piece I quoted from above.

…But in retrospect, said the (United Auto Workers vice president Cindy) Estrada, “to have that big a change of heart so suddenly tells me that there must have been a piece of Governor Snyder that was planning this all along.” She said she believes Snyder “was influenced by outsiders, like the Koch brothers and ALEC, and then other very powerful insiders like Dick Devos and the Mackinac Center.” In other words, the conservatives who helped get him elected.

While Snyder spent nearly $6 million of his own cash on his 2010 campaign, he had serious back-up. As Mother Jones’ Andy Kroll reported last winter, the Republican Governors Association spun off a short-term PAC called RGA Michigan 2010 which spent over $8.3 million, “54 percent more than any other PAC had poured into any election in Michigan history” (some of that cash was allegedly funneled out of state, but over $5 million went to the state GOP). Among the group’s top donors: David Koch, Paul Singer, and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. $1,485,000 came from the DeVos clan, who co-founded the direct-marketing company Amway.

Dick Devos, a former Amway CEO, was the GOP’s self-funded (failed) gubernatorial nominee in 2006. During that campaign, he said he had no interest in “Right to Work.” But like Snyder, he’s had an apparent change of heart. The business group West Michigan Policy Forum, which Devos chairs, recently announced that it was prepared to get a right to work law on the ballot if legislators didn’t send one to the governor’s desk. A Mother Jones review of tax records revealed that the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation is also a donor to The Mackinac Center, a conservative think tank also backed by the Walton Family Foundation and the Charles G. Koch Foundation. As Kroll reported, Snyder’s “emergency manager” law adopted four out of four recommendations from Mackinac.

Paul Singer chairs the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank which has received funding from a Koch-backed foundation. Singer also directs Elliott Management, which played a lead role in buying up the debt of Delphi, the auto parts company which supplies to GM and Chrysler, and made a major profit off of the auto bailout. As Greg Palast reported in The Nation, “Of the 29 Delphi plants operating in the United States when the hedge funders began buying up control, only four remain, with not a single union production worker.”

David Koch was famously impersonated by blogger Ian Murphy in a prank phone call congratulating Scott Walker on his union-busting fortitude. The Kochs are major supporters of ALEC, and provided the funds to start AFP, a successor to the Koch-backed Citizens for a Sound Economy. As Lee Fang reported at The Nation, in 2008 through 2011, Mackinac and AFP-Michigan vastly outspent the union-backed group Progress Michigan.

Amway, Mackinac and the Manhattan Institute are all ALEC members. The right to work bills passed by the Michigan House and Senate have substantial overlap with the wording and content of ALEC’s model “Right to Work Act”…

It goes on from there, that but that’s all that I can stomach… Let’s just say that there’s ample evidence, given what Weiser said above, and the funding data that investigative journalists have been able to uncover thus far, that this wasn’t a case in which our legislators were simply listening to the people of Michigan, and doing what they wanted. If it were, the Republicans wouldn’t have snuck an unnecessary appropriation into the bill, making it “referendum-proof.” (According to Michigan law, spending bills can’t be put to a public vote.)

The bottom line is that the people of Michigan have been sold out. Our futures have been leveraged. The sacrifices of our ancestors have been shat upon. And for what?

We should be ashamed of ourselves for having bought into the Snyder myth. Best case scenario, he’s a weak leader who couldn’t stand up to the well-financed assault from the far right of his party. Worst case scenario, this is who he really is. Either way, he was wrong for Michigan, and we need to turn our energies toward finding a suitable replacement who the people of Michigan can get behind.

update: Our friend Chris Savage, over at Eclectablog, is reporting that Dick DeVoss could well have set this in motion prior to the November election, when he agreed to bankroll the campaign to kill Proposal 2. Here’s a clip.

…(M)ulti-millionaire Dick DeVos was heavily involved in the Right to Work for Less push. He assured Republican legislators that he would bankroll their fights against any recall efforts that may result from their RTWFL votes and threatened to withhold campaign funds or even fund primary challenges if they didn’t fall in line and this included Governor Snyder who is quite vulnerable to a primary challenge (or at least was until yesterday). Additionally, I’ve learned he spent $20 million on the effort to defeat Proposal 2 in November — the Protect Working Families ballot initiative — in exchange for assurances that the legislature would pass RTWFL legislation and that Snyder would sign it…

24 Comments

Mark – You might know this too, but Weiser’s wife, Eileen Weiser, is on The State Board of Education. A supporter of “blended learning”, I wonder what role she has had in the defunding and transition to charter and for-profit schools?

Snyder seems to have been telegraphing from the start that he doesn’t give a damn about another term. He’s on the fast track to a national stage. He might have earned the backing of the big boys yesterday too. What a complete fuckover for working people and the state in general. He’s not done yet either. Looks to be going hard right on abortion next. There’s your real Krampus.

Is it possible to FOIA the Governor’s phone records? I’d be really interested to know who he talked with over the course of the past two weeks. I imagine that they have ways of ensuring that people don’t find out, but I’ve love to know how all of this went down.

Michigan can’t go the way of Ohio, where a referendum last year reversed legislation that would have restricted collective bargaining. Michigan’s right-to-work legislation is attached to an appropriations bill, meaning it can’t be reversed by referendum. Also, it may be too risky to wait and go the way of Wisconsin, where litigation continues after a judge struck down parts of a collective bargaining law.

However, in Michigan, there is an option of a “statutory initiative,” which would be permitted if opponents of the bills can collect enough signatures to equal 8% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, union leaders say. A so-called veto referendum could be triggered by collecting signatures equal to 5% of the votes cast.

A statutory initiative would allow voters to cast a ballot on right-to-work legisation in November 2014, when Gov. Rick Snyder, who has said he would support the legislation, will be up for reelection.

“There are multiple options for a referendum,” a senior labor leader said Tuesday. “All options are on the table. This fight is far from over.”

It’s unclear whether unions are promoting a referendum now to warn Snyder of the repercussions that signing the legislation would have.

It should seem a bit ironic that our most prominent union leaders still talk about voting for Democrats, passing “the right legislation,” backroom negotiations, repeal, and recall as “fighting.” Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a failed strategy and it has been for a very long time.

But something tells me they know this, besides the last decade of my life spent looking at the labor movement. Labor history reveals that our union leaders fit firmly in the “wait and see” camp, using fiery rhetoric to imply they want a revolutionary upheaval. But everything else tells me they assume progress comes through gradualistic negotiation of the boundaries of status quo politics. Meanwhile those in charge can narrow those boundaries at every step of the way.

“Partnership” indeed. Witness the diversion they led toward the Romney building yesterday. They led the crowd on with claims to push hard, but in the end it’s still about 2014. What a joke.

When the Americans For Prosperity tent was taken down and that dickhead conservative was punched, that’s when you can see what it takes to fight and win. In the context of a mass demonstration, with a clear connection to what’s at stake, you have to expect dramatic confrontations. It won’t be at the head of the movement, but the working class must present a visceral threat.

Thousands of Michigan workers, retirees, students and families came to the state Capitol to stand up for workers’ rights and against the tyranny of corporate CEOs like Dick DeVos and the Koch brothers. Snyder chose to ignore the voices of Michigan’s middle-class families and side with his corporate donors by signing so-called “right to work” legislation.

At his news conference, Snyder said of those who had assembled in Lansing, “They can finish up, and they can go home.”

Our message for Governor Snyder is this: The people of Michigan are not finished. Yesterday was not the final word on the matter. This fight will continue, and the time to organize is now.

Don’t wait for someone else to do something about this.

Join the Michigan Democratic Party today.

The Michigan Democratic Party is only as strong as its members — and we need motivated people at the grassroots level to ensure the voters of Michigan do not forget what transpired yesterday.

Take action. Get involved. Join us now.

2014 starts today.

Mark Brewer Chair, Michigan Democratic Party

P.S. – If you’re already a member of the Party, thank you for your support. Please forward this email to five friends and ask them to join us in the fight for the future of Michigan’s middle-class families.

as Anon says, time to wake the fuck up. While underhanded and deceitful, I don’t know if this law will make a damned bit of difference when it comes to jobs and pay. But if it does decrease pay, decrease job security and benefits and remove worker protections, then groups of those effected will have to rise up for what they believe in. People have the power to changes things, but it comes at a great sacrifice. People are gonna have to seriously fuck some shit up, they are going to have to fight with the police, they are going to have to be willing to go to the mats and shed some blood, willing to go to jail, to lose jobs, to lose everything. Unions once did this kind of thing, but no more. Now they lobby politicians who could care less about the needs of the working man and women.

You want to send a message – read some labor history and watch some video of the late 60s for lessons. Burn the motherfucker down and be willing to pay the price.

This could be the Labor’s equivalent of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam Protests

Labor unions are corporations. They pimp out workers. That doesn’t make what’s happening right now in Michigan right. On the whole, unions are a good thing. The benefits are indisputable. As others have pointed out, they gave rise to the middle class. With that said, though, it’s probably time for a serious housecleaning within the unions. Just like the Republican party has to rebuild itself after the last big defeat, so to do the unions. My hope is that they come back stronger, but, in order to do that, they’re going to have to stop focusing outward for a minute and look inward.

In what way do unions “pimp out workers?” This sort of backhanded support is exactly the sort of horseshit being peddled by Snyder in defense of this legislation. The chance that this “housecleaning” will make anything stronger for workers is a crock.

In the wake of impairing the rights of workers to freely contract, Michigan Republicans are continuing their parade of horribles:

1) Conscience exemptions for health care providers so that doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others can refuse to serve patients based on bigotry (if they can cite a religious source for their bigotry).

2) Mandate that all insurance plans offer abortion coverage only as a separate opt-in. This anti-woman legislation flies in the face reason and it represents another attempt to inject religious principles into statute. Who plans for an unplanned pregnancy? If enacted, this legislation will cause predictable problems for women across Michigan.

3) Eliminating PPT revenue that supports local police and fire protection. This will either diminish public safety or drive up local property taxes. Per usual, this is a tax shift from the wealthy and to the middle class.

4) Expanding the Education Achievement Authority statewide, replacing local school boards with a new statewide school bureaucracy. This will mean more privatization of schools and more problems maintaining our pension obligations.

“Finally, multi-millionaire Dick DeVos was heavily involved in the Right to Work for Less push. He assured Republican legislators that he would bankroll their fights against any recall efforts that may result from their RTWFL votes and threatened to withhold campaign funds or even fund primary challenges if they didn’t fall in line and this included Governor Snyder who is quite vulnerable to a primary challenge (or at least was until yesterday.) Additionally, I’ve learned he spent $20 million on the effort to defeat Proposal 2 in November — the Protect Working Families ballot initiative — in exchange for assurances that the legislature would pass RTWFL legislation and that Snyder would sign it.”

As PRWatch’s Lisa Graves points out in this analysis, the Orwellian-named right-to-work (RTW) laws first emerged in the post-World War II years in southern states that wanted to thwart the civil rights gains made by returning African-American soldiers and labor unions during the war. Twenty states passed RTW laws in the following decades, including many that saw the laws as a tactic to stop unions from helping civil rights organizers.

In the past 25 years before Michigan’s coup, only three states have adopted RTW laws: Idaho in 1995; Oklahoma in 2001; and Indiana in 2012. Indeed, as PRWatch points out, the “2012 presidential election map of ‘red’ states looks strikingly close to the RTW map. But the vast majority of ‘blue’ states, like Michigan, have not embraced” the union-busting reform.

Conan Smith, at a recent Washtenaw County board of commissioners working session, regarding Michigan’s right-to-work law: “I hope we are comparatively aggressive in our stance of supporting our labor partners and finding innovative ways that we can test this new world.”

The State of the State address is coming up, and the governor will likely use this opportunity to justify policies that hurt the middle class. We need you in Lansing on Wednesday to send the message that we can’t trust Gov. Snyder to tell it like it is for working families.

If you can’t make it to Lansing, stay tuned for a list of State of Our State House Parties happening around Michigan.

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